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Man Said to Be Aide to bin Laden Detained by U.S.

WASHINGTON, April 27 — A man described as a senior Al-Qaeda commander who was involved in assassination plots against President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan and in attacks in Afghanistan was taken into American custody and transferred to the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the Pentagon announced today.

The man, Abd al Hadi al-Iraqi, is an Iraqi Arab who joined Al Qaeda in the late 1990s and rose to become a top aide to Osama bin Laden, according to a Pentagon spokesman, Bryan Whitman. He was captured as he was trying to make his way to Iraq, Mr. Whitman said.

Before Mr. Iraqi was turned over to Defense Department custody, he was held by the Central Intelligence Agency, making him one of the most senior Al Qaeda operatives to be held by the agency since it transferred more than 14 Al Qaeda members who had been held in secret prisons around the world to Guantanamo Bay last September.

Mr. Iraqi is reputed to be one of a new generation of Al Qaeda leaders who have emerged in recent years to take control of the terrorist organization’s operations. Many of those leaders are believed to have been hiding in Pakistan’s largely ungoverned tribal areas along its border with Afghanistan.

Mr. Whitman declined to say when or where Mr. Iraqi was seized. “At the time of his capture, he was trying to return to his native country, Iraq, to manage Al Qaeda’s affairs and possibly focus on operations outside Iraq against western targets,” Mr. Whitman told reporters.